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Five Cabin Camps were built in the 1930s and can accommodate up to 200 persons and are used extensively by clubs, groups and reunions. The story of the camps begins with Congress authorizing the park as the Chopawamsic Recreational Demonstration Area in August of 1933. It was one of 46 recreational demonstration projects supervised by the National Park Service and built by the Civilian Conservation Corps throughout the United States. Most of these areas became state parks; only three - Chopawamsic, Catoctin Mountain Park in Maryland and Theodore Roosevelt National Park in North Dakota - became national parks.
During the Second World War, the cabin camps were used as a training site by the Office of Strategic Services, a predecessor of the Central Intelligence Agency and various military special forces units. Cabin Camps 2, 3 and 5 became Area A, where OSS operatives trained for secret missions concerning morale and subversion behind Axis lines. They studied codes, weapons, how to make and disarm booby traps, and how to make parachute jumps from airplanes. At cabin camps 1 and 4 - renamed Area C - the OSS trained people to be radio operators; there they learned Morse code and ciphers, covert radio practices, weapons usage and martial arts. Other training areas included Catoctin Mountain Park and the Marine base at Quantico. Many of the recruits trained in Area C operated ham radios before the war and went on to serve at OSS communications centers in such places as Rome, Italy; Kunming, China; and Calcutta, India. The OSS occupied the park from 1942 to 1945.
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Archive photo of Camp 1374, whose residents built part of what is now Prince William Forest Park’s cabin camps. |
